While Christians point to the New Testament as proof of the enormity of God's unconditional love for mankind, Dawkins said he was revolted by the idea of the cross and the resurrection.

"I don't think we've got a better God in the New Testament," he said. "I think there's something exceedingly unpleasant in the fundamental Christian doctrine of atonement - the idea of a God being unable to forgive our sins unless he tortures his son, alias himself, in the first place. That's a revolting doctrine and in some ways worse than anything in the Old Testament."

While former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, previously accused Dawkins of anti-Semitism after describing God as genocidal and a malevolent bully among other things in The God Delusion, Rabbi Levy said he was not offended by this perspective although he felt that Dawkins was presenting a "simplistic" view of God.

Dawkins said on the programme that his description of God in his bestselling book was meant to be "tongue-in-cheek".